


Vets and Pets Aplenty

by LapisLaysLazyontheLounge



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-13 23:42:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29659110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LapisLaysLazyontheLounge/pseuds/LapisLaysLazyontheLounge
Summary: A Veternary Au featuring Vet Harrow, Sales Rep Gideon and the burning need to get a mangy mutt.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	Vets and Pets Aplenty

Gideon could tell the “Harrow saw a bundle of kittens” days from the “Today was Hell on Dog’s Earth” days from the way she opened the door. The handle, which they had been complaining about for only 4 months so still plenty of time before a repair actually happened, would softly jangle when it was a bundle of kittens day. It meant Harrow’s day at her practice had been for the most part calm, efficient and most of all- mildly interesting. On Hell on Dogs Earth days she attacked the handle like it was eight months past due and infringed on her right to privacy one to many times. She would rattle it like she was trying to tear it apart, with all the slim musculature she could muster. It was still enough to shake the door alarmingly in its frame.

She swept in without barely muttering more than a “Beloved” and that was sign number two on Gideon’s “Tread carefully with your wife Nav” checklist. Gideon being Gideon opted for the safest route. “Was it the tabby or Dulcie this time?” Harrow just glared at her, making her way to the kitchen without looking back. Gideon watched the back of her head from the pillow chair, as always fascinated with how Harrow expressed her anger more easily at inanimate objects than pet parents. Of course you couldn’t exactly pronounce a paying customer an “Impossibly moronic owner as ill suited to caregiving for a domesticated animal as you are capable of dressing yourself in a respectable manner” and not expect to receive a few complaints online. They both remembered the state of her practice before Palamedes and Cam had joined.

“Dulcinea… is a truly saccharine and overly inquisitive individual.” Gideon blew air between her teeth, that was more than enough to give her a clear picture of what had put Harrow in such a foul mood. Dulcinea, sick and pale as always; stopping in with her equally sick and equally pale sphinx cat named Protty for reasons not even Sex Pal could fathom. Said Palamedes getting caught up in not seeing animal’s but being embarrassingly bespotted in that unfailingly tender, unfailingly charming-if-you-squint way of his. Dulcie and him getting lost in discussing, well as far as Gideon knew and been subjected to- discussing everything, in such dry and technical but disgustingly semi-romantic ways that she knew Harrow was up the wall by the third rendition of the Dulcinea hacks up a lung while Palamedes renders aid without a murmur play.

In her getting lost in thought, Harrow had assembled herself an entirely black coffee, checklist item number 3 crossed off now, and settled herself quite grumpily in her favorite spot. Namely Gideon’s lap. She found herself playing with the stray strands of Harrow’s hair, she was letting it get long again and Gideon was always thrilled to have more of it to idly braid (badly in Harrow’s opinion) while they sat like this.

She let her sip at her coffee for a time and Harrow let her play with her hair for a time before Gideon took an internal breath. _Might as well take the jump Nav_ she thought and prepared herself.

“Okay so Dulcie was making googly eyes at Pal half the day that's usually enough to irk you but not get the full Gothic Queen of Canaan Street outta you. What’s really crawled up and died?” Harrow pinched her nose very briefly, Gideon figured she was having one of her “Oh god I married her” moments. They passed whenever Gideon kissed her or did something remotely attractive to her so she opted for giving her a peck on the back of the head to remind her.

“I- I believe we should get a dog.” Gideon stiffened ever so slightly and Harrow tilted her head back enough to look at her. Some part of her mourned losing Harrow’s hair to play with. “Yes I know I made the stipulation when we began dating that animal’s would never be welcome in any future home we possessed. Yes I know you have wanted a dog since you were roughly five years old and it was an immense concession right off the bat to me to agree to that. But-Griddle. I’m tired. I’m tired every day of going into work and seeing only sick animals. Sick dogs, sick cats; sick rabbits. Old and arthritic felines struggling to walk; dog’s riddled with cancer at barely 7 years old with a careworn parent trying to reassure their child their pet will be fine. I want to care about an animal for more than 15 minutes at a time. I want to hold a dog for a better reason then as you would put it: shove a thermometer up their ass without even the courtesy of lube.”

Gideon couldn’t help herself. The kiss was slightly awkward with Harrow’s back still mostly to her but damn if it didn’t feel nice. When they parted and more then a light flush had risen on both of them Gideon rubbed at the back of her head. “Sorry, sorry I caught you off guard but I- that was a lovely little speech my midnight queen.” Harrow shifted herself, reorienting her position so she was now facing Gideon. Her hand came up to cup Gideon’s chin and Gideon felt her flush deepen as Harrow inspected her. Seasoned Karen’s had withered under less intense Nonagesimus attention and this was marked by as much infatuation as fire. “You owe me a kiss then Nav.” She murmured and Gideon had all of 3 seconds to mentally celebrate before her wife closed the distance between them. They forgot about work related irritants soon after.

It was only a couple days later when Harrow handed her of all things a questionnaire. “Did- did you really write up a fucking questionnaire to figure out what kind of dog I want?” Gideon was a bit more than flabbergasted, this was worse than when they had been planning the wedding and Harrow had peppered her with seating arrangement options for three hours. They had a grand total of 8 friends at the time and still did. How she had made so many still quietly perplexed Gideon but she’d long gotten used to the various Nonagesimus methods of stress management. But this? This was something else.

To Harrow’s credit she looked more than slightly bashful in fact Gideon would say she was a complete wreck based on the mild hand wringing and inability to fully look Gideon in the eye. “Yes Griddle a questionnaire. You have mentioned several various and completely unrelated breeds of dogs over the years that you have either liked or expressed interest in owning and I wanted to cover my bases.” Gideon smiled at her, a broad teasing grin that made Harrow tremble just the slightest bit. But she plowed on regardless, seemingly attempting to overwrite Gideon’s enjoyment of her suffering through sheer willpower. She’d done it many times before to be sure. “If you could fill this out before I get home today that would be wonderful, you have the day off unlike some of us who work for a living.” Gideon considered that a mildly low blow, working from home for a pet food customer service branch was no easy bit and Harrow knew that. When she told her as much she’d simply flipped her off, given her a kiss on the cheek and in her work shoes that took a very cute tiptoe to do, Gideon sent another thank you god out to the universe for that, Harrow said goodbye and went off to work.

Gideon flipped through the 69 questions (and oh how she wanted to thank god for her wife picking up at least some of her humor) and swiftly decided that it was superfluous. She knew what type of dog she wanted and more importantly she knew the type of dog Harrow wanted. The breed had been the whole reason she’d gone to veterinary school. It was the whole reason they’d even met in the first place. So she set the booklet aside, finished her inordinately sweet coffee and went to work for the day thoroughly finished with people’s inability to think for themselves by lunchtime. By then she was finally allowed to go on break and texted Harrow.

Will you be mad at me if I don’t do the thing?

Yes. I spent literally all of last night making it. While you slept.

That is not all you did last night. I could send you photos of my neck if that would jog your memory!

No do not do that because Corona is watching me over my shoulder and I don’t want her to be jealous.

Oh my god Harrow why!

You won’t do my questionnaire and that irks me Gideon!

I don’t want to do it cause I was gonna say we should just get a beagle!!!!

Oh.

Yeah see, now it makes sense why I don’t want to do it.

Also the fact that you constantly get misdirected on tasks like a wayward duckling.

I’ll take that as a compliment babe. So....beagle?

Beagle then.

Shit breaks over, love you, let me know in a bit when ya wanna go looking.

Yes, yes love you too and sure. Take out the eggplant from yesterday, I wanna reuse it tonight.

Gideon lost track of time the way one does when you’re bored, working and listening to the nth customer of your life confuse cat food for dog food and blame you for it. She’d at least managed to stave off Harrow’s ire by pulling the leftover eggplant ‘meatballs’ out though why Harrow wanted them tonight she was unsure of. They almost never had the leftovers the next day, waiting a bit to build up a healthy stock of various kinds before diving into them. They stretched meals and paychecks like that often. The handle jiggled and something in Gideon got irrationally excited. It was the softest she’d heard her jangle it in weeks and it meant Harrow was in one of those blessedly rare, soft moods. Gideon was half out of her chair with anticipation of cuddling her wife and watching a rerun of Cutthroat Kitchen that she almost missed the modest box in Harrow’s arms. Almost.

She managed to get “Wha-” out before she heard it. A tiny whimper, weak and confused. Harrow was looking at her, really looking at her with those deep black eye’s tinged warm and bashful. She opened her mouth, closed it; opened again and closed. They stared at one another for a long moment before another whimper sounded. “I- a man came in after finding a litter on the side of the road. Corona swore up a storm. I've never seen her so angry and Palamedes looked like someone had stepped on his foot and called Kubrick a peasant. Camilla was about ready to go out searching for the offender she even had her pocket knives out even after the whole Ianthe incident. Oh and the Teens were there looking for you, they wanted advice on doberman food again.”

Gideon just threaded her hands into her hair and let loose a strangled sigh. Harrow had a tendency to ramble lately if she was extra nervous and this was obviously a supreme case of it. “My Penumbral Knight, My Queen of the Holy and the Damned; Please.”

Harrow just blinked before actually shifting her stance a little bit, weight moving from one leg to the other. It was absolutely adorable and Gideon felt her love for her grow even more.

“There were three of them and they were still remarkably healthy except-” here Harrow pointed her chin down at the box which fittingly moved slightly in her hands “this one. She’s small, she has to be the runt and no one else could take her in for the night, I wanted to watch her overnight because she’s slightly dehydrated and-” Harrow trailed off as Gideon moved in close, taking the box gently from her.

She rubbed at her arms for a moment, watching fascinated as Gideon carefully placed the box on the floor. Both of them ignored the tremble running through her, Gideon was fairly sure she was like a hurricane blown tree but didn’t care. She peeled the folds of the box away and stared down at the little package inside. Gideon promptly burst into tears as the beagle puppy blearily looked up at her and wagged her tail. Harrow swiftly followed her as she watched Gideon slowly stick her hand near the puppy and she immediately stuck her head into her palm. It was like putting a grape in a giant's hand.

“Harrow.” Gideon started before swallowing thickly. She tried to start again, voice a little less emotional now. “Harrow do we have the room?” Harrow knew what she meant, the apartment was spacious enough for a dog of this breed, Gideon got more then enough exercise on her lunch walks for her and with a vet of Harrow’s caliber as an owner the pup would get every vaccine and care needed and then some. It was money she was asking. Even with two incomes money could be tight, Harrow’s practice was still small, plus making sure that the nurses were all paid handsomely cut into the limited profit further. But it was worth it to make sure their friends could live without monetary hell staring them in the face. Gideon just held the dog, letting her sniff her and try to stuff her nose into Gideon’s pockets, desperately wishing this was all real.

“Even if there isn’t Griddle, there will be. I’ll make the room.” She loved the look on Harrow’s face, that fierce set of her jaw; the way her eyes gleamed with resolve. It was Harrowhark at her most determined and that as much as anything sold her on this.

“Can- can I name her Jasmine?”

“You mean after the movie?” Gideon nodded not trusting her voice at the moment. Secondhand Lions had meant more to her as a foster kid then she could rightly say. She’d fought full grown teenagers just to protect her copy of it. If anyone in the world deserved to be named after the titular lion it was this scrawny little beagle attempting to lick her face clean. It was a great day. It was a fantastic day, a day with the first dog in her life already curled in her lap asleep; a day with the love of her life watching her watch the dog, the slightest smile on her lips.

It was a day she went to sleep with the dog curled up on the little bed next to them, Gideon kissing her wife like it was her only oxygen, the only way to survive being alive was to connect with Harrow; again and again, to be near her and hold her. To exist as Corona teased them about existing as the Gideon-Harrow, the Harrow-Gideon- one unable to exist without the other, one unable to truly come alive without the other. Adding a dog just for that extra measure of love made it all the sweeter. It was a day that would never be matched- until the sun came up and gave her the same gifts all over again. It was the best kind of day.


End file.
